Showing posts with label population. Show all posts
Showing posts with label population. Show all posts

Thursday, March 7, 2024

"The Feminist Perspective" by Carol Brouillet

AJAX SAYS:  I first found this excellent transcribed speech by long-time Green and community activist Carol Brouillet a while ago and then rediscovered it recently.  It is over a quarter-century old now, but it still remains true today, a fortiori in fact.  NOTE:  Due to decades of endemic neoliberal conditioning, for most readers, this perspective is almost certainly NOT what you think it is from the title.  So read on.

(Original can be found here at https://www.communitycurrency.org/feministP.html.)

This is a speech written for The Other Economic Summit (June '97). Please feel free to post or reprint in whole or in part. (This site employs Style Sheets so you also need to download CCstyle.css.txt, rename it "CCstyle.css", and include it where you put this file.


The Feminist Perspective

by Carol Brouillet

The word define, literally means to draw a line around something -- to separate a part of reality from the whole. At the Fetzer Institute, quantum physicists met with Navajo, Hopi and other indigenous people to discover that native languages were able to convey the nature of quantum realities much better than English or French. In the structure of our language, we separate subject and object. In Navajo or Hopi the separation does not exist, everything is in relationship. The foundation of the aboriginal cultures includes a reverence for the sacred dimension of life, our deep interconnection with the Earth, the Cosmos, and all living things and it is reflected in the language itself.

        Western Civilization has tried to separate spirit from matter. First dualism, then came the idea of God as the machine maker, and a mechanical worldview which put man above all else -- the alpha and omega of creation. Eventually God was eliminated, and we were left with a meaningless, purposeless Universe. Only recently have scientists begun to recognize and validate what indigenous cultures have been saying for countless millennia, that we cannot separate subject from object, we are all connected. Still there seems to be a jetlag between insights and institutions. Powerful illusions have been maintained by an extraordinary propaganda machine without which our institutions, and our governments would crumble.

        We realize that our planet is under attack, our oceans are dying, the rivers are being poisoned, our forests are being destroyed, millions of people are suffering from hunger and terrible exploitation, species are going extinct every moment. How can we reverse this onslaught, this wave of destruction? How can we fortify the people and lifeforms that remain?

        First we must recognize the root causes of the host of maladies that are afflicting humanity and the Earth. The dominant culture's worldview promotes disconnection, encourages specialization, neglects a holistic view of ourselves and our relationship to the world. This worldview amplifies and supports hierarchical systems, the control and exploitation of people, natural resources, as well as other lifeforms. It does not recognize the sacredness of life, or the value of living ecosystems, people, or anything that cannot be measured and monetized. The global economy is absolutely blind to the webs of interdependence between all living things and our mother planet. It's a systemic problem which has gotten progressively worse.

        It's easy to blame everything on the rapacious greed of politicians or CEO's who are earning obscene amounts of money while laying off employees and destroying the environment, but the system which molds their behavior must also be examined. In the past two decades, merger mania has dramatically restructured industry, resulting in the monopolization and vertical integration of large sections of the economy by fewer and fewer transnational corporations. There was a time when companies expressed concern towards their employees, when loyal, hard-working employees expected to keep their jobs and get a pension when they retired. Enlightened presidents and executive directors actually tried to treat their employees well and behave in a socially responsible manner. Many of those companies have been shut down and the goods they once produced are now being produced in Third World countries where military dictatorships keep wages low and drop environmental standards. The most socially responsible CEO's lost their positions, or their companies became the targets of hostile takeovers, the corporate raiders loot pension funds, liquidate the company resources for short term gains. Now, the tyranny of the bottom line means -- that it is almost impossible for CEO's to behave in a socially responsible way. The financial pressure demands that they externalize costs and increase profits or lose their positions or their companies. Unenlightened CEO's, who do not mind downsizing, are removed if they do not do it fast enough, and are found to be "underperforming " by Wall Street standards. In David Korten's book When Corporations Rule the World, there are examples of the CEO's of the largest corporations, GM, American Express, IBM, Westinghouse, being axed by an extractive financial system.

        Should we blame the managers of investment funds who wield this power? Or are the investors to blame for their collective blindness and greed? We need to look at the misconceptions and emotions which have created and maintain the dominant institutions which continue to "rule" and control the world. The fictitious entities known as corporations which are totalitarian and have rewritten the laws to gain immortality and rights over nations, states, communities and individuals. There is a book called Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, first published in 1841 which chronicles in the first hundred pages those times when nations were caught up in speculative frenzies, the tulipmania in Holland in the 1600's, France and England with the South Sea Bubbles, and Mississippi Schemes in the 1700's. Everyone is familiar with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, but I think these historical speculative bouts were relatively mild compared to the speculative frenzy which is happening at this very moment.

        Bernard Lietaer, who is writing a book called The Future of Money: Beyond Greed and Scarcity, says that our official monetary system has almost nothing to do with the real economy. The volume of currency exchanged on the global level is $1.3 trillion per day. This is 30 times more than the daily GDP of all of the developed countries together. Of that, only 2 or 3 % has to do with real trade or investment; the remainder takes place in the speculative global cyber-casino. He sees the possibility of a crash as about 50/50 over the next 5 or 10 years. Many people, including me, say it's 100 percent. George Soros, who has made a fortune speculating in currencies says, "Instability is cumulative, so the eventual breakdown of freely floating exchanges is virtually assured." Joel Kurtzman, ex-editor of the Harvard Business Review, entitles his latest book: The Death of Money and forecasts an imminent collapse. Bernard elaborates that if there were a crisis, and if all the Central Banks were to agree to work together (which they never do) and if they were to use all their reserves (which is another thing that never happens) they have the funds to control only half the volume of a normal day of trading. In a crisis day, that volume could easily double or triple, and the total Central Bank reserves would last two or three hours. In 1929, the stock market crashed, but the gold standard held. The monetary system held. Here, we are dealing with something that's more fundamental. Bernard adds, "The only precedent I know of is the Roman Empire collapse, which ended Roman currency. That was, of course, at a time when it took about a century and a half for the breakdown to spread through the empire; now it would take a few hours."

        What is holding the system together? And when it does collapse, what will replace it? Each of us, consciously or unconsciously is playing a role in this. What we believe, what we do with our money, our time, either strengthens the dominant belief systems and institutions or weakens them and draws strength to the creation of new belief systems and alternative institutions.

        We are living in an extraordinary time of chaos and paradox, where all sorts of possibilities are opening up. The vast majority of people are losing faith in institutions and trying to improve their lives in countless ways. There are heretics within governments, corporations, educational institutions. Non-profit organizations continue to blossom and grow. There has never been a better time to organize. The New Age movement needs to be grounded. The hard core political activists could benefit from consciousness raising. The environmental movement needs to address the issues of class, race and gender. This is happening, as people come together, learn from one another, and build coalitions.

        We recognize that all our issues are interrelated, that we are more alike than different in our common goals -- peace, justice, a future for our children, a healthy planet and healthy environments for all living things. It is also a time of great personal transformation, our worldviews are continually challenged by new information. As we become more aware of the consequences of our collective actions, it becomes harder and harder to live a "normal" life because to live in adherence with our values, we must change our living patterns, and change the most basic systems upon which we depend. How we obtain the food we eat, the clothes we wear, our shelter, our means of transportation, how we educate our children, take on greater meaning and become political acts, broadcasting our belief system and our values. This cannot happen overnight, so each of us must experience the contradictions, paradoxes of transformation which we are witnessing in the world today.

        Aung Sung Suu Kyi wrote: "It is not power that corrupts, but fear -- fear of losing power and fear of the scourge of those who wield it." This fear corrupts politicians and immobilizes the vast majority. Fear is used, created, to justify all military activities, the ever expanding security forces that governments use to oppress their people, and the expanding prison industry. Anything we do to add to that level of fear, that immobilizes people and reduces their capacity to respond in a creative, positive way can be harmful. Academia and the media play a major role in promoting the myths which feed fears and create the image of a dangerous world of scarce resources where overpopulation threatens us with extinction.

        Is the world dangerous? Are people dangerous? The world would be a much safer place without armies and police to "protect" us. Imagine if the military budget and the money spent on police and prisons were spent on health, education, housing, clean water. The fears are created to "control" and "exploit" people.

        Look at the scarce resource myth promoted by Malthus before we were born. "Resources are scarce; we must compete for them in order to survive. They are getting scarcer and scarcer all the time as the population grows and there is less land, less water, less fish in the sea." Well, if Malthus had said, "Resources are not scarce; there is plenty for everybody, so long as we share." he would probably not have become famous, his ideas would have served no useful purpose for the ruling class -- but if the idea that the Earth has abundant resources, if they are equitably shared had prevailed, I don't think we would have the disparity between the rich and the poor that we have now. Look at the distribution of wealth. There is plenty of money, and yet there is no money for meeting the basic needs of the vast majority. While the number of billionaires increase and the transnational corporation's economies grow to dwarf those of countries, more and more people are being denied their rights to live and support themselves and their families.

        Overconsumption is surely as threatening, if not more threatening, than overpopulation, but the corporate media aren't going to promote the idea of voluntary simplicity. It's obscene that 20% of the world is consuming more than 70% of the world's energy while the remaining three-quarters consume less than 30%. The closer we look at those numbers, the worse it looks -- two billion people have no access to electricity. Blame the world's problems on those least able to defend themselves has been the favored tactic of the rich and powerful.

        When the Europeans first began to colonize the rest of the world, they used force. In order to get people to work for them, they had to drive people off the land. The same techniques have been used again and again throughout the world. A tiny percentage of people hold most of the world's land and are the greatest cause of abject poverty. Forced into cities or wage slavery, torn from their cultures, women have had ever larger families. Access to land, equality, education and the availability of family planning would reduce birthrates dramatically. One percent of the world's wealth is held by women, and most of the world's work is done by women, whether they are paid or not. Truly there is enough to meet everyone's needs, but there will never be enough to satisfy the greed of the few.

        Buckminster Fuller created a game called "The World Game." You can play it with between 50 and 200 people on a board the size of a basketball court, which represents the world. Each person is given the actual resources available in the part of the world that he represents, but instead of trying to take over the world, the object of the game is to solve the world's problems. The illuminating thing about the game is that the problems are very solvable, if people simply play cooperatively. It just shows that in the real world, what we lack are not resources, but the political will to put aside narrow personal interests and act on behalf of the greater good.

        In the film, Who's Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies & Global Economics, Marilyn discovers the origins of the U.N. Systems of National Accounts, a system imposed upon every country that joins the U.N. and hopes to get a loan from the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. The system was based upon a pamphlet by John Maynard Keynes and Richard Stone entitled "The British System of National Accounts and How to Pay for the War." This system enables the global elites to finance their militaries. Indeed it is in the economic interest of the major powers, who earn so much from their arms deals, that there is always a war going on somewhere. The system does not recognize the value of peace, an intact ecosystem, or the unpaid labor of women. Monetary transactions are measured and deemed of the greatest importance, no matter how devastating their effects are. It does not see anything of unquantifiable value -- life, people, the Earth; it only sees that which it measures -- money. The forests, the lungs of our planet, our worthless according to this system, unless they are chopped down and sold as timber.

        By elevating money to the point where everything else may be sacrificed to obtain it, by confusing money with real wealth, our civilization is rushing to destroy itself. Toynbee chronicles the rise and fall of civilizations, one feature that they have in common is the extreme concentration of wealth and power, and ecological collapse. The rich have never been richer nor the poor poorer. Agribusiness has meant a loss of 90% of the edible plant species since the turn of the century; it rivals the military as far as the devastation that it has wreaked upon all arable lands. Despite the obvious needs of the vast majority of humanity, money is being siphoned from the poor to the rich. Through the IMF and the World Bank, the money continues to flow to the wealthy countries, in 1994 net payments to the US from "developing" countries reached $2 billion. The Bretton Woods Institutions force countries to open themselves to foreign investment, devalue their currencies, switch from growing food for local consumption to growing export crops. These policies are as devastating as war and just as deadly. If the children who starve quietly in their homes as a result of World Bank policies were taken out into their village squares or city parks and shot, the world would be horrified. But the catastrophic suffering remains invisible to those who focus their attention on making money, and feel no connection to people outside of their class and culture. As cancer, unchecked consumes its host; the world's parasites continue to feast upon the world oblivious to the suffering of the bulk of humanity and the stresses on our mutual life support system, the planet. Without water, food, friendship, love, health, all the money, gold, toys become worthless baubles.

        The old system has relied upon military force and control to maintain the wealth and privilege of the ruling elite. Weapons, misinformation, and money are the tools this system has relied upon. By beating the drum and blaming the world's ills on overpopulation, it subtly encourages the idea that masses of people are expendable, institutionally it says that the lives in industrialized nations are worth more than those in "developing" nations and within wealthy countries the rich are idolized and society's ills blamed on the poor. Wherever we can, we must challenge military expenditures, expanding "security and prison systems." We must nurture all efforts towards non-violent conflict resolution. We need to institutionalize a global minimum wage and a maximum wage. We should respect and honor people for their integrity, character, wisdom and gifts to society, as opposed to the amount of wealth they can extract from society. We should also recognize the gifts we have received from the Earth and recognize our responsibility to future generations to safeguard their living heritage.

        We must speak "truth" to power and challenge the misinformation which is broadcast by the major media. For example -- the growth illusion, the GDP myth; GDP is more indicative of the rape and exploitation of resources in a country than the health and well-being of its people or ecosystems. We need new indicators which measure what really matters -- our health, the health of the environment, quality of life. the disparity between the rich and the poor. We must support the alternative media, which is not dominated by corporate or government interests and tries to speak for those whose voices need to be heard.

        I just read 3 books by Makoto Shichida who has studied children in Japan for decades and specializes in developing courses for preschoolers and mentally retarded children. He has written over 50 books, including Babies are Geniuses and Right Brain Education in Infancy -- Theory and Practice. His thesis, basically, is that geniuses are people who use both sides of their brains. Generally, in the west, we only give attention to the abilities of the left side of the brain, but it is the right side that should be nurtured in its most formative years. Right brain abilities include mathematical calculating ability, photographic memory, image visualization, the ability to absorb vast quantities of information and make sense of it, and what is referred to as extra-sensory perception, telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition. Imagine how different the world would be, if every baby born were loved, nurtured and given the opportunity to develop all their abilities, mental, spiritual and physical. The well being of our infants and children worldwide should be at the top of our priority list, as a species!! Therein lies the hope of humanity and the world. A few enlightened people aren't going to turn our situation around; its time for collective enlightenment. The dominant worldview is a dying worldview; the holistic, cooperative, worldview is being born, the youngest are the quickest to grasp these truths, when they are given the opportunity.

        Hilka Pietela, Hazel Henderson see that the real economy is for the most part "invisible" to those blind "economists" who are mainly hired by the rich to serve "their" agendas. The life support system of the planet, the warming rays of our sun, these "gifts" form the foundation of the human economy upon which everything else depends. The unpaid work of women, the voluntary networks of cooperation and community are also a fundamental vital chunk of the real economy. On top of that, there is the protected sector which provides many basic services, and is guided by official means for domestic markets, food, construction,...The smallest part of the economy, the icing, so to speak, is the "global economy" which includes large scale production for export, and to compete with imports. This gets most of the attention, and the transnational corporations that dominate world trade get most of the profits, employing less than 1/3 of 1% of the world's population. Pietela finds that the most fatal shortcoming of the prevailing economics is that it does not distinguish the cultivation economy from industrial production. This effort to control, and extract value from living nature is taking a great toll on people and our world.

        I have a T-shirt with a Dollar bill on it which clearly states- Warning! Use of this product may cause apathy, laziness, selfishness, ignorance, loss of identity, greed... environmental destruction, racial tension, murder, war, and impoverishment for others. Continuous and excessive use could render a permanent state of indifference to the welfare of those around you. Use at your own risk!

        I think we should make little warning labels and stick them on our cash. We need to shatter a few illusions about money -- who creates it, who benefits from its use and who suffers. We need to remind people that our health, our relationships, the well-being of our communities, the health of our eco-systems, economic justice, world peace, and our happiness are more important than our bank balance.

        Bankers create money out of thin air and loan it to governments and others at interest, but they don't create the interest, so it is never possible to pay off all the debts. Money is a tool of empire; it allows the flow of resources from the poor to the rich. It used to be called usury and was condemned by all the world's religions, but when the Catholic Church became the largest landowner, it figured out how to break the old taboo.

        Helena Norberge-Hodge has chronicled in her film and book -- Ancient Futures how a nonmonetized culture, in Ladahk, rich in Buddhist spiritual traditions, with an intricate system of family and social ties, where ninety percent of the land was evenly distributed amongst families, people lived ecologically and sustainably. Almost everyone knew how to build a house and meet all of their basic needs. Money, a road to India, tourism have been disastrous for the culture, creating the same problems we find in industrialized societies. There are lessons to be learned here, to reverse this process and point our culture towards a more sustainable, happier existence.

        Suppose we create a different kind of money, with a different dynamic, based upon that which we value -- to encourage healthy relationships, build community, and restore the environment. We could write those values directly on the money to raise awareness and remind people of what is important. This is what Paul Glover in Ithaca, New York and others have done. Not only does local currency help build community and prevent resources from being drained away by transnational corporations, it is a tool to raise consciousness, to promote meaningful exchanges, and help reweave the bonds of community. Community comes from words meaning "the free exchange of gifts." In ideal societies, there is no need for money because people exchange their gifts freely. We must remember that money is simply a tool, it can be impersonal, anonymous, destructive or we could redesign it to encourage recognition of our deepest values and to help build a world based upon respect and healthy relationships between all people.

        There is a concerted effort, at the moment, by the rich, to make sure that this doesn't happen. It's called the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, and if the rich countries agree, the poorer countries might be forced to sign on to an elimination of all barriers on foreign investment. It gives all rights to capital, and removes the ability of communities, states, sovereign nations to demand some sort of accountability from "investors." As the World Trade Organization became a Bill of Rights for corporations, this international agreement could become a bill of rights for the very rich, at the expense of all governments, people, and the environment. The only good thing about it is that if any politician votes for it then you know he or she is a prostitute working for monied interests with no regards for their constituency; the bad thing is that if it does go through, to undo it would take at least 15 years, so by the time you get rid of the politicians that passed it, the others won't be able to do much about it.

        So we need to launch a public education campaign about this, and why not teach people about the monetary system at the same time? Create community currencies, print the values you wish to strengthen and encourage on your bills and point out how "the other monetary system" is hell bent on destroying those things.

        Explaining the monetary system to most folks is not easy. It shatters too many belief systems that have been held for a long time. Yes! The Journal of Positive Futures, latest issue is on the subject of money and local currencies with great articles by David Korten on the difference between money and real wealth and Bernard Lietaer whom I've quoted. It's a great consciousness raising tool for grown-ups. It's much easier to explain this to first graders, who don't have to unlearn so much and quickly grasp the main ideas. In one sentence -- our current monetary system concentrates wealth and power destroying the Earth in the process; we need to create a new system that redistributes wealth and power, healing the Earth in the process.

        As our old system is dependent upon fear, greed, military force, misinformation, the new system should be based upon love, respect, compassion, cooperation, beauty and truth. The old system will topple because it is so disconnected from the real world, the real economy. The new system will be born out of recognition for what people value in their communities, and how they organize and cooperate to meet their community's needs; their will be as many systems as there are communities, richly diverse. The shared values of different communities will give rise to regional or bioregional currencies. Let us create a system that relies upon cooperation and trust to meet the needs of all people and improve the health of the ecosystem upon which all life depends. The old system relied on "fear" to control others. Let us create a system which "nurtures" people and life and actively encourages diversity.

        It is time to practice cooperation, respect and love in all areas. My husband and I took a class in "building equality" in relationships. Our instructor, Bill Moyer, explained to us that in his work with men who had been violent towards their wives, he had discovered that only 3% of the violence was physical, 45% was verbal and the rest was psychological. The difference between most people and violent guys was that 3% area. He discovered that the men always felt that they were the victims when they attacked their spouses -- because their wives had threatened their self-image or their worldview. (This applies to government behavior, as well.) We are conditioned by society to "win" arguments, to "dominate," to have the last word, to have our opinions prevail. We are not generally taught that our perception of ourselves is not dependent upon other people's opinions or that if we actively listen to, and respect one another, we will learn from one another. We generally unconsciously start debating and defending our views, controlling and dominating others. The class helped my husband and I become aware of the way we communicated with each other, as well as our interactions within different groups, but where I really felt the difference was in my relationship with my children. It is so easy to adopt "control" mode with 3 little boys who want to go off in 3 different directions. It is a daily challenge for me to transform myself, to listen, to develop cooperative patterns within my home. Now I realize that they are my teachers, and our lifelong learning adventure is a cooperative one.

        The old system depended on "experts" who imposed their ideas upon the many. Let us actively encourage the participation of all, so that we might learn from one another and go from a "smart" culture to a "wisdom" culture.

        Let us nurture respect in all of our relationships and organizations. Let us recognize that our own well-being cannot be separated from the well-being of all people.

(End of Carol Brouillet's speech.)

AJAX SAYS:  And THAT is what it looks like to use one's right-brain properly!  No wonder our left-brain dominant culture may find this hard to understand.  Now, I may not necessarily agree 100% with everything she says, but overall, she is really right on the money here.  And the fact that some people today may not even recognize her feminism as such, only goes to show just how co-opted and infected mainstream "feminism" has ulitmately become by the now-endemic virus of neoliberalism

Let the planetary healing begin!

Saturday, February 24, 2024

Mother Nature Knows Exactly What She Is Doing

In a previous article, I had noted that we have little if anything to fear from an aging and eventually shrinking population in the future, while the very real ecological problems of overpopulation and ecological overshoot greatly dwarf any social and economic problems of the former.  But I did not get fully into the mechanics of exactly WHY birth rates are falling and have been falling for quite a while now.

I would of course be remiss not to note that the plandemic and especially the jabs (I for one refuse to inaccurately call these novel and experimental gene therapy drugs by their preferred V-word) played a role, but the trend of falling birthrates began LONG before anyone ever even heard of the "novel coronavirus".  In fact, it goes back decades.

It's almost like Gaia is trying to tell us something.  So read on, and let's answer the "clue phone" ringing louder than ever....

There also physical factors dampening fertility such as endocrine disruptors and other pollutants, which clearly play a role, along with widespread use of both licit and illicit drugs as well, but most of the drop in birthrates is due to more people of both genders choosing (consciously or unconsciously) to have either fewer kids or no kids at all.

The obvious reason?  Women are generally no longer forced and coerced as they once were to be serial breeding slaves, at least not in the rich-world countries.  So unsurprisingly, they are now having fewer kids, and starting later in life than before.  No wonder the reactionaries want so desperately to revoke Women's hard-won reproductive rights.  In fact, Women all over the world are increasingly FED UP with patriarchy, especially in traditional societies that have recently modernized.  To cite an extreme example, the country with the world's lowest total fertility rate (TFR), South Korea, there is currently even a Lysistrata-like movement called the "4B movement" (a combination of reproductive strike, dating strike, marriage strike, and sex strike against men by primarily the younger generation of Women) that is apparently rapidly catching on over there.

And in parallel with that, a more subtle reason also emerges:  as men now have more "skin in the game" legally in regards to children that they sire, compared with just a few generations ago, men also are finding that having too many kids and/or too soon is more burden than benefit for them as well.  Furthermore, at least in the rich-world countries, children are generally no longer a source of cheap labor anymore.  So it really doesn't make economic sense anymore for men to have lots of kids like in the past either.

Meanwhile, under late-stage capitalism and late-stage patriarchy, the cost of raising children continues to skyrocket along with the extreme inequality and (often planned and artificial) scarcity of resources (especially housing) thanks to the oligarchy and their sycophantic lackeys in government.  That impacts both genders, of course.  Increased life expectancy, urbanization, technology, and an accelerating pace of life also contribute to reduced birthrates well.

It is also an opportunity cost for Women as well, in that now that Women are now allowed to have (gasp!) education, careers, and stuff like that, and thus attempting the high birthrates of the past would clearly interfere with and put a damper on that.  Time and energy are finite resources, after all.  Reactionaries of course, at least when they aren't too craven to say the quiet part out loud, would cynically argue that Women thus have "too many choices" now, and that forcibly taking opportunities away from Women (!) would be the only way to restore the high birthrates of the past.  Technically, they are not entirely incorrect. That, and/or restoring the very high poverty and death rates (both infant/child and maternal) of the distant past, would indeed be the only way to restore such high birthrates.  But I don't think any sane person really wants to do either, nor would it be even remotely ethical.

Nor are the high birthrates of the past really a good idea in an overpopulated world in ecological overshoot, obviously.  "Replacement rate," which ultimately results in a long-term stable population number that is neither growing nor shrinking, is a total fertility rate (TFR) of roughly 2.1 children born per Woman.  For example, a TFR of, say, 1.5-1.8 or so (where most of the world currently seems to be converging towards, even in many non-rich countries) for a few generations would lead to a gentle and gradual population decline of roughly 10% to 25% per generation once positive momentum ends and then negative momentum sets in.  (A TFR of 1.0, around where most of East Asia seems to be converging, would result in an even sooner and faster population drop of about 50% per generation, and so on.)  Then, as the world becomes less crowded, and thus the cost of living drops, Women will likely decide to have somewhat more kids and the TFR will eventually settle around replacement rate once again.

All of this dovetails nicely with the Gaia hypothesis per James Lovelock.  That is, Mother Nature knows exactly what she is doing when a grossly overpopulated species wreaks havoc on the Earth as we continually transgress planetary boundaries like there is no tomorrow.  In the case of modern humans, we have artificially (and temporarily!) pushed back many of the natural limits that once held our population in check, so now we are, not coincidentally, losing at least some of the previous desire and/or ability to procreate until we ultimately get back into balance with Nature, God willing.  So it is unsurprising that all of the overt pronatalism in the world, even literally paying Women to have kids, is NOT really working to raise birthrates more than at the very margins.  Even the very generous and progressive Nordic countries are still significantly below replacement rate, albeit still higher than most of their neighbors to the south (except for France, who is also almost as generous as the Nordics).

That's not to say that a generous progressive and pro-humanity agenda (such as Universal Basic Income, Medicare For All, paid family leave, flexible work-life balance, free or subsidized childcare, improved education, and stuff like that) would be useless, far from it.  I believe that it is simply the right thing to do for it's own sake regardless.  It's called ethics, and respecting the inherent dignity of the human person.  But, short of literally paying Mothers at least a quarter-million dollars per child* (the approximate low-ball cost of raising ONE child from birth until age 18, excluding higher education) up front, if one is somehow counting on such things merely to stop the population from aging or shrinking, they are most likely barking up the wrong tree.  The most it could do in that regard is slow down the rate of aging and decline, so as not to hit too large a "pothole" on the road to sustainability. 

(*NOTE:  If your jaw just dropped reading that figure, think of it like this:  Mothering is literally the most important job in the world, yet it is one that literally pays NEGATIVE "wages".  A quarter-million dollars is really just breaking even, basically.  Now you see why practically all pronatalist initiatives, monetary or otherwise, don't really move the needle.)

Regardless, we must leave room for Nature, lest Nature ultimately not leave room for us.  We ignore that basic maxim at our own peril, not to mention that of the entire planet.

And certainly, we must never, ever, force, coerce, or deceive anyone to have kids against their will, period.  That is a very backward, outmoded, illiberal, and all-around toxic thing to do to anyone, and does NOT respect the dignity of the human person.  Doing so treats humanity solely as a means to an end, not an end in itself.  That should go without saying, of course, but when carrots fail, there will be the temptation to use sticks, as some countries are already doing today.

In a nutshell, an aging and shrinking population is inevitable, baked into the cake for several generations now, and the only thing we can really do is adapt to it.  How we will "ride the slide" is ultimately the "make or break" point for our species during the current Anthropocene epoch.  And the Earth will ultimately thank us if we get it right (and we absolutely cannot afford to get it wrong, as that is not an option).

Let the planetary healing begin!

P.S.  I realized that I had glossed over and neglected to mention the factor of NARCISSISM.  Some would argue that a supposed increase in "cultural narcissism" is at least partially responsible for people choosing to have fewer kids or none at all.  If that is true, then that is actually a GOOD thing on balance.  Narcissists truly make some of the very worst parents as a rule (second only to psychopaths and sociopaths), and narcissists of course tend to beget more narcissists, via nature, nurture, or both.  And a culture causing fewer narcissists to procreate as much will cause them to ultimately go largely extinct within a few generations, which would be to everyone's ultimate benefit overall.  Once again, Mother Nature knows exactly what she is doing. 

(Mic drop)

Saturday, January 6, 2024

Who's Afraid Of An Aging (And Shrinking) Population? (Updated for 2024)

I had long wondered why so many men, especially the elites, are terrified that our overall population is (gasp!) aging. It is not just because they fear that their economic Ponzi scheme of necrotic growth for the sake of growth will unravel, though that is clearly part of it as well. No, I think that their real fear is that the Crones (i.e. Women over age 50 or so) will have an *unprecedented* level of power due to relative strength in numbers, and thus so will Women in general. That is because Women are living longer than ever before, as well as having fewer kids. And the men are getting scared.  Hence the recent push to whittle away Women's reproductive rights, eventually including most if not all birth control as well.

Additionally, with birthrates declining over time, and each new generation thus slightly smaller than then previous one, that effectively means that there will be fewer younger Women relative to slightly older men, giving younger Women that much more bargaining power in the dating market despite an overall surplus of Women in general.  Thus by the 2030s, Women will get the best of both worlds, and be even more empowered as a result of such demographic trends.

(Note that this also means that statistically more younger men will be "mentored" by older Women in that regard as per the laws of supply and demand, which would also help further accelerate the transition to Matriarchy as well.)

Ah, you say, but what about the supposedly legitimate economic fears of an aging (and eventually shrinking) population?  Well, a recent study came out that found that such fears are essentially overblown.  In fact, moderately low fertility (i.e. between 1.5-2.0 children per Woman) and a shrinking population would actually maximize living standards for the general population.  Another recent study found that there is essentially no robust correlation between population aging and economic growth, contrary to what many people seem to believe.  Not to say that an aging population will not pose some challenges, but on balance the benefits would outweigh such drawbacks.  And our Monetarily Sovereign federal government can easily absorb the fiscal costs of aging such as pensions and healthcare.

Oh, and by the way, there is that elephant in the room--make that the elephant in the Volkswagen--OVERPOPULATION.  Left unchecked, it will destroy the very planet that gives us life.  While technology (and Monetary Sovereignty) can largely solve the foreseeable economic challenges of aging and declining populations, the same cannot really be said of the intractable ecological problems of overpopulation.  And the only ethical way to do this is to voluntarily have fewer children, i.e. well below the "replacement rate" of 2.1 or so.  According to the best evidence, the best ways to accomplish this is 1) female empowerment and 2) poverty reduction, since after all, the number one cause of overpopulation is the MEN who force, coerce, deceive, and/or brainwash Women into having kids that they otherwise would not have (or much sooner and closer-spaced than otherwise).  Seriously. 

Sorry fellas, but the truth hurts.

So what about countries like Japan, Italy, Greece, Spain, etc. with so-called "lowest-low" total fertility rates below 1.5?  Yes, it is likely that they will hit a sort of short-to-medium-term "pothole" on the road to sustainability if they stay below 1.5 for too long.  Their populations' aging and decline will be significantly more rapid than for countries with TFRs between 1.5-2.0, and may be more difficult to adjust to from an economic perspective.  Well, the answer to that, again, is increased Female empowerment.  We see that European countries with greater Female empowerment and more generous social safety nets for Mothers and children tend to have higher fertility than those with less female empowerment and stingier safety nets such as Spain, Italy, and Greece.  Even though all of those countries have TFRs below replacement, Northern and Western Europe are generally around 1.6-2.0 while Southern and Eastern Europe are generally significantly below 1.5 children per Woman.  

And now the USA, thanks in part to the pandemic and the lockdowns, and likely the jabs as well, birthrates have REALLY crashed through the basement.  The estimated TFR for the USA in 2020 is as low as 1.64, a record low.  And no sign of reversal anytime soon.

The proof is clearly in the pudding.

(Recently, there was a reactionary right-wing article that actually said the quiet part out loud about what the right-wing reactionaries and sexual counterrevolutionaries really want to do, if you have the stomach to read such disgusting verbal defecation. TL;DR version:  when Women are forced or coerced to mate in captivity, and/or otherwise forced or coerced to be utterly dependent on men, their birthrates are way higher than when they are not, go figure.  In other news, water is wet and the sun rises in the east.)

Make no mistake, if Women were to take over the world tomorrow, the global TFR would plummet to 1.5 or lower almost overnight.  But it would not stay below 1.5 for very long, as it would gradually rise back up to around 1.5-1.9 where it will remain for at least a generation or two, and eventually rise to around the replacement rate of 2.1 after the population shrinks significantly over time.  And honestly, it can't happen soon enough.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again.  We must leave room for Nature, lest Nature not leave room for us.  We have been warned, decades ago in fact. 

As the great Marianne Williamson once said, at this juncture of history we are now at the "menopause" of humanity, in which what we really need is fewer babies, and more wisdom.

In other words, VIVE LA FEMME!  Let the planetary healing begin!

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Who's Afraid of an Aging Population?

I was recently wondering why so many men, especially the elites, are terrified that our overall population is (gasp!) aging. It is not just because they fear that their economic Ponzi scheme of necrotic growth for the sake of growth will unravel, though that is clearly part of it as well. No, I think that their real fear is that the Crones (i.e. Women over age 50 or so) will have an *unprecedented* level of power due to relative strength in numbers, and thus so will Women in general. That is because Women are living longer than ever before, as well as having fewer kids. And the men are getting scared.  Hence the recent push to whittle away Women's reproductive rights, eventually including most birth control as well.

Ah, you say, but what about the supposedly legitimate economic fears of an aging (and eventually shrinking) population?  Well, a recent study came out that found that such fears are largely overblown.  In fact, moderately low fertility (i.e. between 1.5-2.0 children per woman) and a shrinking population would actually maximize living standards for the general population.  Not to say that an aging population will not pose some challenges, but on balance the benefits would outweigh such drawbacks.  Oh, and by the way, there is that elephant in the room--make that the elephant in the Volkswagen--OVERPOPULATION.  Left unchecked, it will destroy the very planet that gives us life.  While technology can largely solve the foreseeable economic challenges of aging and declining populations, the same cannot really be said of the intractable ecological problems of overpopulation.  And the only ethical way to do this is to voluntarily have fewer children, i.e. well below the "replacement rate" of 2.1 or so.  According to the best evidence, the best way to accomplish this is female empowerment and poverty reduction, since after all, the number one cause of overpopulation is MEN who force, coerce, deceive, and/or brainwash Women into having kids that they otherwise would not have (or much sooner and closer-spaced than otherwise).  Sorry fellas, but the truth hurts.

So what about countries like Japan, Italy, Greece, Spain, etc. with so-called "lowest-low" total fertility rates below 1.5?  Yes, it is likely that they will hit a sort of short-to-medium-term "pothole" on the road to sustainability if they stay below 1.5 for too long.  Their populations' aging and decline will be significantly more rapid than for countries with TFRs between 1.5-2.0, and may be more difficult to adjust to from an economic perspective.  Well, the answer to that, again, is increased female empowerment.  We see that European countries with greater female empowerment and more generous social safety nets for mothers and children tend to have higher fertility than those with less female empowerment and stingier safety nets such as Spain, Italy, and Greece.  Even though all of those countries have TFRs below replacement, Northern and Western Europe are generally around 1.6-2.0 while Southern and Eastern Europe are generally significantly below 1.5 children per woman.  The proof is clearly in the pudding.

Make no mistake, if Women were to take over the world tomorrow, the global TFR would plummet to 1.5 or lower almost overnight.  But it would not stay below 1.5 for very long, as it would gradually rise back up to around 1.5-1.9 where it will remain for at least a generation or two, and eventually rise to around the replacement rate of 2.1 after the population shrinks significantly over time.  And honestly, it can't happen soon enough.  We must leave room for Nature, lest Nature not leave room for us.  We have been warned, decades ago in fact. 

In other words, VIVE LA FEMME!  Let the planetary healing begin!